Valuable Humans in Transit by qntm

Anthology of short SF Stories. Strong on SF and Technology concepts, and Philosophy. Not so much on the literary side I guess. Not that I mind this so much because I really enjoyed reading these stories. All of them are thought provoking. 

Lena - about the first consciousness to be successfully uploaded on a computer simulation. It touches on the implications for the original human, and the copies that are made of it. This was my favourite story (1). 

If you are reading this - a man meets with an old astronomer who had previously found a message from outer space. 

The frame-by-frame - it follows an autonomous car computer and how its various functions decide action when a person walks into the road. 

The Difference - it might be about one of those AI apps which are popular nowadays or it might be about a real human being asking for help. This was my third favourite story (3). 

Gorge - a spaceship finds a strange planetoid inhabited by nanobots. Cripes does anybody remember google this is people chatting about Google People. Not the strongest story I think. 

Driver - another story of uploaded consciousness. This time uploads are used to control large numbers of other virtual images. 

I don't know Timmy, being God is a big Responsibility - scientists create a simulation of reality. It's so real and accurate one can see earth develop like it did in real life, and humans and civilisations. One can zoom in and see the scientists themselves working on a simulation within the simulation. This was my second favourite story (2). 

A Powerful Culture - about pollution and clean use of resources and humans from another dimension. Valuable Humans in Transit - AI trying to save humanity. Shares third place with The Difference (3).

The Poe Clan by Moto Hagio.

Short Vampire stories or as Hagio calls them "Vampirnella". The main character is Edgar, a 14 year old who is transformed into a vampire by the leader of a Vampirnella clan. Because of this, he became immortal but will never grow up. Edgar is an interesting character. Sometimes lonely, sad and frail but others cruel and sadistic. He loves his sister Marybelle and his friend Alan and would do anything or everything for them. Themes to think about are immortality, loneliness, life and death. The stories start from Edgar and Marybelle's transformation, in the 18th century, to stories in the 19th and 20th centuries. I think my favourite is one in which a group of people gather in the early 20th century to compare stories about a strange boy called Edgar who is mentioned in various writings and paintings dated since the 1700s. They want to know if this Edgar (and Marybelle) is the same person.

In our own image. Saviour or Destroyer? The history and future of Artificial Intelligence by George Zarkadakis.

From prehistoric Australopithecines to Modern Humans to theories about the future of AI. This book is dense with information. Not difficult to read but I took my time to digest it. I enjoyed very much the discussion on how humans developed social language (social interactions, tool making, hunting) and then, thanks to some mutation of gene FOXP2, developed general purpose language. Zarkadakis says that we developed General Intelligence from General language. General Intelligence gave us high level consciousness. Through history we have referred to this as soul, mind, self-awareness, subjective experience (qualia). Zarkadis discusses how through the ages philosophers, thinkers, scientists have thought about us and our intelligence. This explains why we think the way do about AI nowadays: as if AI will be like us, self-aware... However in reality this won't happen, we are subjective beings but subjectivity is not logic and therefore it cannot be coded. 

... and the Moravec Paradox, Moravec says that it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance in intelligence tests but difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a 1yo when it comes to perception or mobility. In other words coding cognition is easy but coding sensing and action isn't. What this means is that it is (highly) intellectual jobs which will be taken by AI, not manual ones. Janitors from the future will be better off than lawyers.

Fatale by Jean Patrick Manchette.

French crime noir. A short, fun, amazing read. It follows a woman killer, doing her stuff. We know little about her, just enough to "guess" why she might be doing the stuff she does. The world around the killer is as dark as her, maybe worse. At points we might even justify what she does.... Great food for thought! 

I first met Manchette through Jacques Tardi's comic adaptations of his work. I read Fantagraphics fantastic boxset titled Streets of Paris streets of murder 2 years ago. It blew my mind. This year I wanted to read one of the original novels, and at the same time have a quick taste of French noir literature (as opposed to USA Chandler, Hammett, etc.). 

I chose Fatale because it was easily available on kindle but also because it was one of Tardi's stories, which left me wanting more. The fact is that Manchette and Tardi never finished the adaptation, and the comic was published incomplete. (But it is still amazing.)

El Eternauta (The Eternaut) by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López

At last, I was able to read the Eternaut. It took me years to get an edition in Spanish which wasn't printed in microscopic font. This is a recent Spanish release by Planeta Cómic. There is an English translation by Fantagraphics. Anyway, the Eternaut is an epic science fiction, apocalyptic, end of the world type of story. Very well written. Dense with text: dialogue, thought bubbles, and narration, but it never gets boring or tiring. At the character level, this comic is about survival, bravery, and resistance. But if you look at the big picture, you can see some political undertones, Cold War, and nuclear power as well as dictatorships and tyrannies. I guess there are many ways to interpret the story. Personally, I couldn't stop thinking what I would do if I was in the Eternaut's world. Would I persevere or give up with the first challenge? Would it be worth living after the apocalypse? Negatives: obviously, the depiction of women, more or less useless, emotional, incapable of defending themselves, with a limited ornamental role except when they cook your food.

El Informe Monteverde by Lola Robles. (Monteverde: Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist)

B E A U T I F U L ! ! This is a short, sci-fi novel of under 100 pages. It follows a female linguist who travels to a distant planet to study the native languages. As languages reflect the people who speak them, we learn a lot about the history, culture, and traditions of the locals. Things I loved are the scenes where the protagonist explains how language is limited/conditioned by the environment and by our senses (or our ability to perceive the environment). Felt strong Le Guin vibes here (the Telling), so totally recommend it if you are Le Guin's fan or if you like soft sci-fi.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr.

A murder mystery set in the late 19th century New York. Interesting, gripping story. Great characters, especially the protagonist, a sort of psychologist with a past. The crime, and particularly the serial killer, have a lot to give. Lots of layers are pealed like an onion. Oh and there's a woman detective! Great reading experience!